Theatre review: End of the Rainbow

My mum remembers being about 20 and watching Judy Garland on Sunday Night at the London Palladium, promoting a series of London concerts that would turn out to be her last, and seeming... not entirely at her best. She was also a fan of Jinkx Monsoon's appearances on Drag Race, so when Monsoon was announced as playing Garland in a revival of Peter Quilter's End of the Rainbow, dealing with just that period of her life, this year's birthday present was easily decided. Judy arrives at the suite of the Ritz that will be her home for the next six weeks of concerts, in full diva mode grumbling to her new young fiancé and manager Mickey Deans (Jacob Dudman) that it's not as big as she demanded. Soon she has bigger things to worry about though, as she's attempting, at Mickey's request, to stay off the cocktail of drugs and drink that's been alternately waking her up and sending her to sleep since she was a child star.

Over the course of those six weeks in 1969 she constantly tries to get her hands on something, preferably Ritalin, to keep her going, and we see glimpses of the concerts themselves as her performance gets more and more fractured.

Although Mickey remains present, the central relationship in Quilter's play is with her gay pianist Anthony (Adam Filipe.) He's a character in his own right, a more nurturing and supportive figure than her future husband, but he's also a representative of Garland's enduring queer fanbase: The love is genuine, but the question is also asked to what extent that love depends on her life being a car crash.

Another thing my mum remembers about that time was Garland's death about a year later, and the newspaper headlines that squarely placed the blame on Mickey, by then her fifth husband, for supplying her with the cocktail of drugs that killed her. To some extent the play is about questioning that: Quilter's portrayal of him is far from sympathetic (made less so by Dudman playing him on a single abrasive note throughout,) but it's not wholly unsympathetic either; he's well aware that Judy's finances are in a state where he won't make a quick buck out of her (half his time is spent trying to make sure they don't get kicked out of the hotel for non-payment) and he's strict about her trying to stay off the substances. It's only when it becomes apparent she won't be able to function at all without them that he capitulates and provides her with Ritalin.

But the male characters (there's also Fred Double as multiple lackeys who all end up on the wrong side of Judy's mood swings) are all a side-show to the star wattage of Judy, and Monsoon reliably steals the show. She gives the exact right mix of recognisable impersonation and layered performance in its own right that you need for this sort of portrayal, all the more impressive when you consider this started out as a Snatch Game caricature. Although it's got a tragic centre the play is also full of barbed comic lines from its leading lady, and Monsoon reliably delivers big laughs as well as the tears the show is leading up to.

The play itself doesn't always come off brilliantly - it's set between the hotel suite and the Talk of the Town stage, with Jasmine Swan's design very much favouring the latter so we never quite get the claustrophobia of the former. We do get the repetitive nature of the spiral Judy's life has shrunk to though, with Rupert Hands' production never quite finding a new rhythm for the similar scenes. Fortunately the central performance is barnstorming and moving enough that the flaws never really matter that much. And, in a series of costumes recreating iconic Garland looks, Judy is brought back to tragic life.

End of the Rainbow by Peter Quilter is booking until the 21st of June at Soho Theatre Walthamstow.

Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Danny Kaan.